Ningaloo's changing landscape

The sun rises across the water, a novelty as you face east to the Exmouth Gulf. Your eye then traces north up the curve of the bay, towards the tip of the North West Cape.

Novotel Ningaloo Resort, Exmouth, has changed the landscape here, adding the comforts of contemporary-styled four-star accommodation, groomed service, and excellent cuisine to the activities of the cape. It has added a new phase in the evolution of this destination, which has the iconic Ningaloo Reef, whalesharks, diving, offshore fishing and Cape Range National Park as its natural, strong attractions.

By day, the resort is mostly empty. People are out doing stuff and there is plenty to do - from the simplicity of drift snorkelling at Turquoise Bay, to diving on Ningaloo Reef, to charter-boat fishing and to, perhaps, the ultimate, swimming with whalesharks.

Over beers, we watch the light drop over the lily pond in front of the Novotel Ningaloo Resort's bar, which overlooks the pool which, in turn, overlooks the gulf.

My companion has just been out on a whaleshark charter and swam with four. He has a slightly salty, spaced-out look. "It was amazing. I never really thought of myself doing something like that."

No one here has seen a whaleshark season like it, and the talk of the town is a spotter flight recently where 49 whalesharks were seen in quick succession.

We progress from the bar to Mantaray's restaurant, for excellent and well-priced meals and topnotch wines. Mantaray's won a Gold Plate Award and in 2007 the resort, not surprisingly, won a WA Tourism Award for being the best new development. Last year, it won the National Australian Hotels Association award for best resort-style accommodation.

The use of natural materials, such as stabilised earth and polished aggregate floors, sits in synergy with the location and the landscaping with native plants.

A central focus are the adult and children's swimming pools, and there is a gym and good conference facilities.

Novotel Ningaloo Resort, Exmouth, has 68 rooms, all of them spacious and with contemporary design.

General manager Darren Cossill shows me a series of rooms, in eight configurations, to fit a range of budgets and needs.

The 12 standard rooms are big and more than comfortable for a couple, then there are eight superior rooms, eight more on the first floor with even better ocean views, six one-bedroom bungalows, 12 one-bedroom apartments, eight two-bedroom apartments on the ground floor and eight more on the first floor, and six two-bedroom bungalows. Three-bedroom apartments are available on request.

Mr Cossill, who has been involved in Exmouth's tourism growth for more than a decade, and was at the Potshot for 10 years, has particular praise for his stable of motivated, professional and well-trained staff.

There is nice detail around the resort - the way rooms can be reconfigured to suit tastes, views from the spa baths, the huge day beds, stone floors and louvres.

There is art by Shane Pickett, a Nyoongar artist who has exhibited in every Australian State and Territory, Simon Gilby, Steven Draper and James Corbett.

Corbett, from Queensland, has sculpted two emus from Holden parts.

"I hate to think how many photographs of them have been sent around the world," says Gary Cossill, who developed the property and is a director of the resort, managed by his son. He then corrects himself: "No, I love to think how many have."